Did You Know...

More details have emerged in the case of the Goose Creek Two defendants. Once again, we’ve come a long, long way from “two innocent boys just driving to the beach with fireworks and getting lost looking for cheap gas.” Federal prosecutors disclosed more info about the YouTube bomb-making videos on Ahmed Mohamed’s laptop:

Instead of carrying out “martyrdom operations,” people can use remote explosives and save themselves for the real battles, an Egyptian student said on a homemade video, according to federal prosecutors.

A court filing released earlier this week provided new details about the video. It is a key piece of evidence in the case against University of South Florida student Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, who faces federal explosives charges after his arrest in August.

Mohamed and fellow USF student Youssef Samir Megahed were pulled over by police for a traffic stop in Goose Creek, S.C., about 15 miles northwest of Charleston and near a Navy weapons station. Officers found explosives in their car and a laptop belonging to Mohamed. It contained the video he made that demonstrates how to convert a remote-control toy car into a detonator for bombs, according to the FBI.

The men are in jail pending trial. They have pleaded not guilty.

Also on Mohamed’s laptop — in a folder labeled “Bomb Shock” — were files about ingredients for explosive, according to the filing by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Hoffer in Tampa.

In addition, the laptop was used to upload the video onto YouTube, the filing said, and it contained a record of an e-mail sent to YouTube in July asking why the submitted video had not been posted on the Web site.

Mohamed said he made the video “to assist those persons in Arabic countries to defend themselves against the infidels invading their countries,” the FBI said. He said “he considered American troops, and those military forces fighting with the American military, to be invaders of Arab countries.”